Discipline of Psychiatry

Undergraduate education in Psychiatry aims to develop the communication and observational skills and appropriate attitudes necessary to examine the mental state, and to provide the clinical and scientific knowledge to diagnose and treat common psychiatric conditions and distinguish them from normal psychological responses to life events. The integration of these observations is to be encouraged within the framework of the patient’s total environment, including physical health and social circumstances, whilst fostering an enquiring mind into the scientific basis of the field.

The Discipline of Psychiatry on the Tallaght campus is headed by Professor Brendan Kelly, and has another senior academic, Professor Veronica O'Keane. The Discipline runs the undergraduate psychiatry teaching programme, providing clinical attachments with multidisciplinary community mental health teams. During their teaching attachments the students visit the psychiatric and general wards, the out-patients' department, psychiatric day hospitals, Tallaght Emergency Department, day centres and, when appropriate the patients' own homes.

Staff from Discipline also contribute to teaching within other Disciplines in Trinity, such as MSc programmes in Neuroscience, as well as post-graduate training programmes for trainees of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland.

The Discipline has a clinically embedded research programme. Current research projects include a longitudinal study of depression in the Tallaght area. This study is being conducted in collaboration with the Trinity College Institute of Neurosciences and spans a broad range of research disciplines from bench laboratory work, and brain neuroimaging, to detailed clinical phenotyping. Other collaborative projects, with the maternity hospitals, are being conducted on the theme of depression/stress during pregnancy and the effects on fetal outcome and baby development. Clinical and basic science PhD students are working under the supervision of the Discipline staff. An expansion of its research remit into mental health services research and mental health law is planned in the coming years.